17/07/2023
Act. a las 20:15
CEST
Experts suspect that the entire herd came to a beach accompanying a female who had trouble giving birth.
A total of 55 pilot whales have died after stranding in a group on a beach in Scotland. It is the worst stranding of whales in that area, according to the rescue teams, who when they arrived at the place where the animals were found, only 15 were found alive, between calves and adults.
Los attempts to refloat one of the whalescarried out by the marine charity British Divers for Sea Life Rescue (BDMLR for its acronym in English), were unsuccessful, as the animal was once again stranded.
The specialists provided first aid to the survivors throughout the day on Sunday. Three of those that survived in the arena died within a few hours, leaving only eight adults and four hatchlings alive.
Faced with the impossibility of returning the whales to the water, the final decision was to sacrifice the twelve that were still aliveall of them in poor condition, to avoid unnecessary suffering.
The event occurred on the beach of Traigh Mhor, on the Isle of Lewis, in the northwest of Scotland. The call for help was launched by several users of the sandbank, who observed that the pilot whales, also known as pilot whales, had been in serious trouble since Sunday morning.
130396920 mairi robertson carrey 2 1024×900 | Mairi Robertson-Carrey / BBC
The BDMLR has indicated that one of the dead whales appeared to have suffered a vaginal prolapsewhich has led to suspect that the entire herd was stranded because one female had trouble giving birth.
In any case, the experts will analyze the bodies of the whales in detail to reliably determine the cause of death. Once the autopsies are completed the corpses will be buried in a landfill.
Pilot whales keep strong social ties and often when one of them gets into trouble and gets stranded, the rest follow. Whales prefer deep waters, although it is one of the species that suffers the most strandings. What has attracted the most attention to this event is the high number of stranded specimens.
Pilot whales, which inhabit oceans almost everywhere in the world, have a marked sexual dimorphism. The males are much larger than the females, as they measure about 6.5 meters and weigh around 2,300 kilos. Adult females have an average length of 5.5 meters and a weight of 1,300 kilos.
They feed mainly on squid and fish, especially mackerel and cod. They can dive up to 600 meters deep.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the pilot whale can be found both in the Cantabrian Sea and in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In the case of the Mediterranean population, it is found mainly in the Alboran Sea and the southeast coast.
There is another species of pilot whale, the tropicalwhich is larger and heavier: adult males measure more than 7 meters and can weigh up to 3,200 kilos.